Trump hails trade pact as the ‘most important deal ever’

President Donald Trump on Monday hailed a US trade pact with Canada and Mexico, which replaces the old Nafta deal, as a historic agreement set to turn North America back into a “manufacturing powerhouse” and fuel US economic expansion.

Governing almost $1.2 trillion in trade, the pact known as the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, is “the most important trade deal we’ve ever made by far”, Trump told a White House press conference.

Trump’s aggressive tearing up of long-standing US trade deals – with everyone from its two huge neighbours to China and the EU – has rattled world leaders and sparked fears of economic turmoil.

“The US in its trade deals has lost on average almost $800 billion a year. That’s dealing with China, dealing with EU, with everybody, Japan, Mexico, Canada, everybody,” he said.

‘Protect jobs’

USMCA is said by analysts to be similar to Nafta in many respects but there is improved access for US agricultural goods, including the dairy products which Canada in particular had tried to limit.

New rules are designed to improve US auto workers’ competitiveness, with 40 per cent of each car required to have been made by people earning at least $16 an hour. The US had also sought increased American content for duty-free autos.

“It will transform North America back into a manufacturing powerhouse,” he said. USMCA will “allow us to reclaim a supply chain that has been off-shored to the world because of unfair trade issues.”

“I must admit, I insist, that President Donald Trump had an open, tolerant attitude,” the leftist politician said.

The pact must still be approved by the Mexican senate, where the coalition with which he won the elections last July has a comfortable majority.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that the deal overall would be “profoundly beneficial for our economy” and “the most important progressive reform for North American workers in a generation.”

For Trump, the USMCA is only the start of what he says is a global pushback against countries taking advantage of the US economy.

Talking up the new accord, Trump declared it a “privilege” for foreign powers to do business with the US.

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